The Lagos State Commissioner of Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, has lamented the damages of poly-pharmacy and under-pharmacy on humans. According to him, the ministry is aggressive against poly-pharmacy. The commissioner lamented at a three-day pharma West Africa trade exhibition, held in Lagos yesterday.
His words: “We don’t want poly-pharmacy; neither do we want under pharmacy. We want our patients to get the right drug in the right context at the right time, given by the right person in the correct formulation, just on time to have its impact. We are very aggressive against poly-pharmacy. This is when you are given a large number of drugs, because you don’t know what is wrong with a patient, and you’re using what we call a sledgehammer approach; one of these drugs will work.
“Now, we understand that sometimes in the clinical setting, that is important, but it’s something that we try our best to govern away from. Under-pharmacy is unacceptable. This means when a patient needs the drug, and that drug is not available, either because you’re in a rural area or you are not in a place where someone can make the right recommendation for you to receive that pharmaceutical. So, that’s one of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Health, and for us to work more strongly in this direction.”
He added that the government’s role and responsibility to create an enabling environment to grow the medical and pharmaceutical economy are extremely important.
He added: “We know that, generally, in Africa, we are importing 80 to 90 per cent of our pharmaceuticals. Therefore, Lagos is very committed to creating an environment for big pharmaceutical companies, for indigenous companies, for any startups to find the enabling environment where we can ensure that we try to reverse that ratio of manufacturing to importing.”
The Commissioner noted that Nigeria is importing 80 to 90 per cent and manufacturing five to 10 per cent. “We want to drive and reverse that ratio to make sure that we’re meeting all our indigenous needs. And that we’re living up to the regulatory framework on the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN), National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and World Health Organisation (WHO) to make sure that we have good manufacturing practices such that we can not only formulate drugs from Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), but manufacture the APIs. And when we are finished with a product, we can subject it to the necessary regulatory standards of bioavailability and bioequivalence.
Those kinds of capacities required the government’s partnership to ensure that we can do the right thing in Lagos and in Nigeria, making it available to us, as a country and as a state.”
The Director General, NAFDAC, Prof. Moji Adeyeye disclosed that by 2025, bioequivalent will be mandatory to all pharmaceutical companies, ensuring that they submit the bioequivalent data, which will enable the reduction of substandard medicines.
She said: “We want to play in the lead arena, global arena, and we have to use standard. We must do what others are doing in the global area. We want to do it for the continent and for the world. We want to trade with the continent and the world. Therefore, we must use international standards.”
